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Saturday, August 20, 2005

The Lamp Shade at the End of the Tunnel

The events of the last week in Iraq have fueled the constant attacks by the antiwar left of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy as a Vietnamesque quagmire. The lefties and the media elite have continued to trumpet the deaths of our servicemen using them as kindling to ignite the next log of anti-American fervor in an attempt to undermine the success of America in the fight against terror. While the news of complications with Iraqi’s constitution is troublesome, an immediate or premature withdrawal from the region as the left desires will not solve the problems of violence and instability in the country. However in order to assure military and political success in Iraq, the will of the American people must be behind the policies being implemented and recent polls have shown American support for the administration’s Iraq policy to be in serious trouble. Unless the support of the people changes and is quickly bolstered, an early withdrawal from Iraq may be inevitable. However, the American media has done little to keep the people in support of the war effort and on the contrary has been the major cause of the loss of support for the war in Iraq.

The media was not always so anti-American rather the phenomenon started during the time of the Vietnam War. For example during the Second World War, the media played an influential part in insuring American morale and support for the war stayed high. The great journalists of the era such as Edwin R. Murrow understood more was at stake than selling newspapers or promoting the journalist’s own personal beliefs. In those years, journalists and the media understood the duty they had to the country to inform the American people while still keeping morale high for the sake of the nation. Unfortunately, the media because of its liberalism and anti-American bias has greatly failed the American people and our country as a whole in this respect. The media elites do not understand the necessity of sacrifice for the sake of patriotism during a time of war like most other Americans do. The media elites under the guises of neutrality in reporting state they cannot curb or skew reporting for the sake of the nation. I, on the other hand, believe it is their duty as Americans first and journalists second to sacrifice their individual trivial political disputes for the sake of the overall good of the nation. However, I do not want people to believe I am advocating the media sacrifice truth in place of propaganda. Rather, I want the media to stop enabling terrorism and our enemies through their continued promotion of anti-Bush and anti-American rhetoric.

However, I cannot solely blame the state of American public opinion about the Iraq war on the liberal media alone. Some blame must also be placed on the American people and our total lack of backbone. When did we go from a nation of defiant patriots who cried, “Give me liberty or give me death!” to a nation of cowardly wimps clamoring for the immediate withdrawals of troops from Iraq because of a few roadside bombs? Now, I am not devaluing the lives lost in Iraq as I truly believe any loss of life is tragic. However, as Americans we need to put the loss of life in Iraq in prospective compared to other wars in our nation’s history. To illustrate my point, one would just have to research the casualty data for other wars in which America has been involved. An analysis of the data for the four major wars during the twentieth century illustrates the actual state of affairs in Iraq are quite good. For example, during the Korean War, the least bloody of all the major twentieth century wars by total deaths, the number of dead reached just above 33,000 a good deal more than the 1,800 deaths record so far in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

From the numbers sited, one can clearly see we are a far cry away from the Vietnam like quagmire the media, the left, and now even some prominent conservatives such as Chuck Hagel are warning us about in Iraq. There still is a beaming light at the end of the tunnel in Iraq. However, in order to reach it we, as a people, must continue to support our troops and must show some courage and willingness to sacrifice to the same degree if not more than prior American generations have. Only through continued determination, resolution, and unyieldingness in spirit can we hope to boost the morale of our nation and of our troops in the field and defeat the Islamofascist terrorist trying to destroy our way of life.

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